The Nostalgia Horror Phenomenon

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Analog Horror, Mascot Horror, Liminal Horror. Perhaps the most popular horror genres in fiction right now, and they all have on unlikely thing in common: a sense of nostalgia.
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[@TheTaleFoundry]

Get Nebula using our link for 40% off an annual subscription! go.nebula.tv/talefoundry See our video about JUNJI ITO's weird brand of horror! ➤ nebula.tv/videos/talefoundry-worldsmiths-the-dissonance-artist

[@w1ndgeneral226]

Hey man, happy (late) Halloween! Since some might still be in the spooky mood, have you ever heard of stories where characters we know and love are distorted, mutated, or simply changed in ways that disturbs us? I know they're technically Creepypastas, but I think there's another specific naming for that type of content. Have you heard of it? 9:41(edit) Ok I guess you've heard some of them.

[@FrankCosbyNo-Relation]

I skipped your nebula ad both times

[@transsexual_computer_faery]

that's mean @@FrankCosbyNo-Relation

[@transsexual_computer_faery]

i'm getting nebula next time they do lifetime memberships

[@TheRezro]

To be honest as someone who was raised in 80/90's. There was a lot of bizarre things in children entertainment back then. What was combination of greed, low tech, lack of regulations, confused PSA and parenting ignorance. Anyone interested in the subject probably can name whole lists of creepy toys and sometimes franchises not intended for kids, but what become popular among them like robocop. Modern children entertaining become far more sterile, with creators being forced to fallow tight guidelines. And parents actually checking age ratings. What arguably become too obstructive. Honestly, mascot horror is pale shade of those times. U still remember how I could not sleep after watching Child's Play as a kid. Not to mention some arcane, half forgotten video games of the past. But people at least can esperancie part of that. Oh, BTW. Ring series, before it become a joke also hit this nerve showing up on end of the era of video loan stores. Not many people remember, but it initially spread as urban legend, what was unintentional. It is because book has TV adaptation what was not released on West, but was available through bootleg. Before proper adaptation show up. But it has impact when some people were confused, seeing mysterious different version of the movie.

[@Warrior-Of-Virtue]

One example of getting screwed by nostalgia is a particular food, usually some kind of candy, that you absolutely loved as a kid. You eventually find that food somewhere and eagerly pop it in your mouth only to find that your taste buds have changed completely over the years and fight the urge to gag.

[@SergioLeonardoCornejo]

Nope. I noticed it wasn't the food. They changed the ingredients. My favorite apple juice went from sugar to artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup. That change ruined the flavor. It wasn't age. It was a change in the recipe. Same with other things which I noticed changes in.

[@NoiseDay]

I literally can't eat the food I'm nostalgic for. Not because it's discontinued or my tastebuds have changed. It's because I subsisted entirely off of wheat products like Cheez-its and freezer pizza and ramen and then I found out I'm gluten intolerant once I became an adult. You know how lovely fresh baked bread smells? It's been so long since I've eaten bread that smelling it now makes me gag. Having the best smell in the world turn into one of the worst smells is a bizarre experience.

[@KarlAndArma4ever]

It's a mix of changing tastebuds and companies tweaking the ingredients juuuuuuust enough to ruin the flavor. I don't like things as sweet as I used to, but I still haven't figured out if that's due to just my taste buds changing or artificial sweeteners being overly sweet in an attempt to "mask" that distinct artificial taste.

[@Ave_Echidna]

Maybe, but if I find a can of Apple Slice I will risk it

[@kaylahouvenagle3866]

Or they changed the recipe; you can't really tell which

[@meekalefox2703]

There was a creepypasta from a while ago called “Funland” in which a guy visits an old theme park he used to visit as a kid, and his favorite animatronic, now corrupted, straight up tells him to get out and that he shouldn’t have come back. I’ve always thought of that as being an allegory for how it’s one thing to remember your past, and it’s another thing to obsess over it and want to go back to a time that just isn’t there anymore. And the main character suffered for it.

[@goddessdeedeebubblesofimag7789]

That... hits too close to home when it comes to me and animal jam... specifically the adventures........

[@forgotten0111]

lol

[@ZR3009]

Holy crap

[@jackiele8311]

Sounds like a spooky creepypasta! Could you provide a link to it?

[@raphaeld9270]

@@jackiele8311 In case the message with the link was blocked by KZbin, you can search for "Funland creepypasta" and there are full entries on wikis and such.

[@tiffanym1108]

So i had a bit of liminal horror recently. I came from small town america where empty streets were the norm. I moved to a decent sized city that i couldn't afford to live and I became homeless. I was used to busy bustling streets. People walking. Cars honking. Then covid hit. The streets were empty. I felt like i was back home but it didnt look like home.

[@teddycouch9306]

I hope youre doing better now

[@tiffanym1108]

@@teddycouch9306 yeah I actually had to move back home. Now streets are empty and it's not so creepy lol

[@darkcreatureinadarkroom1617]

I had an experience like that a couple of years ago! One night I was walking my dog, it was in the middle of winter but it wasn't that cold, it was late but I think it was a Saturday so there were a few people outside... And then I see, a couple of streets ahead, full pitch black darkness. A power outage, nothing unusual. Our regular route would have had us going through that street, but it was so dark I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I was contemplating my options when a car passing by illuminated the street, it didn't look that bad so we kept walking. It was so damned eerie...! You could see everything perfectly! Sure it looked rather ghostly, but there was so much light coming from around the place that it felt like a cool spring dawn in a little town in the middle of nowhere, instead of a massive urban center in the middle of a mild winter night. No darkness. At all. It didn't feel right. Until we turned around on our way home. The streetlights didn't look the same when we came back to them, they looked dull, kinda foggy... And behind us, in the street with no power, darkness had set in again.

[@TheLazyWitch]

never thought i would hear his calming voice talk about freddy fazbear

[@therealmrnoobr0blx]

WAIT WHAT

[@AtlasStation-hu4fz]

XD I knew I'd find one guy mention it.

[@xenird]

O cholera czy to freddy fazbear

[@vladyvhv9579]

Eh. The channel has a lot of videos dealing with various themes, world building, and quite a bit on horror. I'd be more surprised it there's something they won't cover. I may be a bit late to watch some stuff, but I try to catch every video eventually.

[@lunactiathemoth]

he talked about monika from ddlc

[@dionettaeon]

I think Among the Sleep could be another good example. The game is entirely from the perspective of an infant, where even any words you see are unreadable markings, and it's really effective at making everything likewise fantastical and intimidating. Familiar objects seem menacing in the darkness, hanging trench coats look like ominous figures, and hearing aggressive talking as just horrific, distorted noise. And unlike the usual maliciousness in most horror games, the horror in Among the Sleep is actually the trauma of a broken family through the eyes of a child.

[@LadyVenus125]

Wow. That game sounds awesome.

[@alfadorfox]

Agreed! It's been years since I played it though. I forget whether I actually did the DLC as well or just read about it. And in the vein of media with the appearance of analog/nostalgia horror but where the horror is in the situation, and any otherworldly being that can be perceived as creepy might actually be benevolent... well, I won't spoil Angel Hare any further than that.

[@ElijahMeadow]

You should be an audiobook reader, your voice is very calm and talented.

[@mkhairulirwantarmedi7356]

totally agree

[@therealorangemangoes]

fr

[@goodbye3064]

no but like, seriously!

[@robertfield45]

I mean, I could see you read something like a soft sci-fi dead world book. You should give it a shot. In fact, find a public domain book and do a read-along series where at the end you talk about the tropes and topics of the chapter.

[@becauseYES9999]

agreed

[@ramonabdiel10]

Nostalgia is both a gift and a curse

[@Autista_Atipico]

A gurf

[@PurePure963]

Like remembering an embarrassing memory that was suppressed only to come back years later

[@silvertheelf]

Most things are gifts and curses, but they were all once a present. Lel

[@Ali-u9j6e]

​@videogamer778 for example, me eating a crayon when I was 4 years old

[@Ali-u9j6e]

​@@PurePure963.

[@Devalius]

It’s so oddly ironic that I got a surge of joy when you mentioned Candle Cove, because the horror of nostalgia itself has become a weirdly joyous part of my nostalgia experience. It gets me thinking about that old Creepypasta era, with all its mixed bag of writing quality, which I still really appreciate for getting me into horror.

[@blobofdespair]

Yes!! Couldn't have said it better!

[@unofficialspider-man465]

I love and hate getting nostalgia for nostalgia horror.

[@tjzambonischwartz]

Also written by Kris Straub, creator of local 58. The creepypasta even mentioned the show being on "channel 58"

[@elliart7432]

One of my favorite analogue horrors is a new one called "Angel Hare", because... tbh it doesn't really feel like a horror. It follows a young man as he rediscovers this entity that would inhabit the main character of a children's bible show and talk to him directly when he was very little. But the interesting thing is he was never afraid of her. In fact she was kind and patient, and was implied to be the only one looking after him countless times. The horror doesn't come from her, but instead the very grounded-in-reality abuse the boy was facing in his normal life, and what the entity had to do when she was afraid he might not survive. You keep waiting for her to reveal her "true colors" as some evil trickster or something, and it never happens. I just thought that was a really cool subversion of the genre.

[@lerneanlion]

Everything can be a double-edged sword, blessing and a curse, and nostalgia is not even an exception to this.

[@stevenstice6683]

Same things make us laugh... make us cry.

[@soozarooz7813]

Nostalgia is a special type of grief.

[@epicdavid6180]

One thing about nostlagia horror i find interesting is that oftentimes, it's created by people who didn’t grow up with analog media. With creators who are young, i think they are channeling the fear of the unknown. Becuase they dont know what the 80's, 90's, was like necuase they didn't grow up during that time. Despite growing up online and having acess to content of any generation there is still a sepration from them and the culture and people of that time.

[@kaylathehedgehog2005]

When you talked about liminal horror, I couldn't help but think of Disney World's abandoned River Country water park. I don't know what the state of it is now, but I remember reading stories of people who were able to sneak in and seeing the photos they took. There's just something sad and rather unnerving seeing all the park equipment all messy and broken down with nature steadily taking over it.

[@NicolasJRedfox]

thinking back about "where the wild ones are" it's a very cute and charming children's book, but if i remember correctly it actually was rather scary and also a little depressing (?) - like it wasn't quite as happy ending as those fairy tales usually go.

[@Jallorn]

The movie really hit something close to nostalgia horror for me. Seeing the fearsomeness of the monsters fighting, and the seriousness of the threat to, "eat you up!" and that one of the monsters just has their arm ripped off, and just spends the rest of the movie with one arm, man, I was not ready for my nostalgia to be blown apart like that.

[@user-mf5kn8bn9h]

god, I never read the book, but I HATED that movie. I think I watched it in school when I was young, and it definitely stuck with me. I hated the way the wild things looked and how evil they were. i had nightmares about them for ages.

[@covertcreator1174]

Not gonna lie, I was just waiting for you to bring up The Mandela Catalogue. I still can't believe it was made by an 18 year old dude. He's got a heck of a future ahead of him!

[@ceinwenchandler4716]

And the Kane Pixels Backrooms series was made by a kid even younger. It's inspiring.

[@CalebTibster]

9:18 One thing you didn’t mention that I think is worth noting: Candle Cove was written by Kris Straub, the same guy behind Local 58. Not only that, many of his works are in a shared universe. For example, Kris confirmed that the channel that Candle Cove aired on *was* Local 58.

[@michaelkostas6717]

Really?!

[@RyanKHudson]

Came to the comments to mention this. Been a fan of Kris since Starslip. If you haven't checked out his comic Broodhollow, I highly recommend it.

[@jasonmitchell9411]

​@@RyanKHudsonI really liked Broodhollow, but it's unfinished. I really hope he returns to the comic someday.

[@stephenroberts5947]

I think another part of mascot horror is that a lot of people find the aesthetic of objects and areas designed for small children is in some way unnatural. Little kids look at the world differently to to adults, both in what they focus on and in their ability to notice details. Its why kid spaces are often all bright colours and big exaggerated figures with few details to confuse them. For adults however these elements seem unnatural, out of place, they don't fit an adult perspective of what the world should look like so they start to run into that uncanny valley where things don't really belong. It's no wonder that there is a section of horror devoted to it when when there is already a large part of the population who find it creepy and unnatural even before the supernatural is brought into it.

[@ss-oq9pc]

I remember years ago when I was a kid, my mother brought me to some house. I think it was the house of some friend of hers, maybe a coworker. Whoever it was, they had kids my age, and a basement full of toys. Literal piles of them up against one of the walls. Us kids were down there playing for a while, then we decided to go up stairs. The huge pile of toils against the wall was on the way to the stairs. I was the last one to leave, and as I passed the toys I heard a growling sound coming from inside the pile. They didn't have pets. We never went back to that house again.

[@melissaharris3389]

Thank you for your statement.

[@rafbi4874]

I love smell induced nostalgia. You suddently smell something that takes you back, many times to places you can't even remember, but you know you've been there. These last few days smell exactly like the summer before graduating for me and I'm so in love with the feeling of re-experiencing that memory.

[@AustinOnSugar]

"Maybe the only reason it ever felt alive is because you lived it" is a line that goes HARD.

[@dabo77777]

When I was a kid, I woke up with sleep paralysis. All I could see was that reflective shine in my dog's eyes as it peeked around the corner of my dark bedroom doorway. At the time, I didn't know what it was, and it was horrifying.

[@Pipplin]

No way pretty much the exact same thing happened to me, my dog’s a greyhound though so they have their big mouths open most of the time, so I just saw the reflections of the eyes and the teeth, creepy af

[@Daemonworks]

One of the wildest examples nostalgia horror I'm aware of is the Banana Splits movie, took a real-word mascot-suit kids series by Hana Barbera in the 60s and went full horror with it. Not a homage or reference, they just got the rights and went to town.

[@mozzapple]

When you mentioned Candle Cove, it reminded me of a creepypasta called "The M show" where a group of 3 kids watched a show that the author nicknamed The M Show. The kids were informed about a meetup for fans of the show, kind of like a convention, and they all wanted to go. They had to take busses to get to the actual venue, and the busses were split up with kids in one and adults in the other. One of the kids was running late, so the OP decided to stay behind and wait, while the other kid decided to board the bus and go. It turns out there was no M show meetup, and that the busses were a ploy to separate the children from their parents to make kidnapping them easier. The M show had to issue a statement saying there was never an official meetup. It always freaked me out how realistic the story was and how it could most definitely happen in real life if the parents weren't wary enough. I wonder if it was based on a true story

[@Jallorn]

I want to toss out on the topic of Mascot Horror: What the Internet has Done to Garfield, a youtube video that really dives deep into the horror genre that has blown up around Garfield the Cat.

[@JustaRandomDunce]

When I get nostalgia its almost like I'm experiencing a totally different life. Playing Minecraft for the first time led me to build a bunch of houses in creative mode, A bridge, A city. It wasn't that good, but it was enough for me at the time. And looking back on it just feels like looking at a different life. It gives you an odd feeling of "this was you, in this place but its not the you at the moment." Personality and all.

[@PhantomGato-v-]

I look at my old builds, so many of which I once thought were grand and awesome, and I'm either disgusted by the quality of hit with a wave of guilt knowing most people who worked on them with me I will never see again. There's also the unshakable nostalgia of seeing things that remind you of a better time, even if said better time was a mere glimpse of your past, a light inbetween the traumatic dark, it's still something to look back on and admire

[@Blargle42069]

Okay so, I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but local 58 and Candle Cove were both made by Kris Straub!! It seems that he’s quite ahead of the curb when it comes to internet horror trends.

[@tjzambonischwartz]

Not only that, but Candle Cove mentions the show having been on "channel 58"

[@theadventurer685]

Candle cove messed me up back then 😂

[@mrbushi1062]

I was just talking to a co worker how FNAF just hits a core fear we as kids had XD

[@NoiseDay]

I'd like to explore the idea of liminal spaces being horrifying because "you shouldn't be here." I'm autistic and I find comfort in being alone. Being in crowded spaces is stressful, often overwhelming, and sometimes painful. Whenever I got the chance to occupy spaces in their liminal state- a school after 6 PM, for instance- I felt at peace and a little like I was discovering a special secret. When I look at liminal space images, I feel... almost a Junji Ito-esque "this space was meant for me." I'm curious to see how much the horror of liminal spaces capitalizes on the human need for social connection. Don't get me wrong, autistic people need friends as much as anyone else. But I imagine the average neurotypical person feels comforted by crowds or takes their cues from them. In a liminal space, there's nobody there. Which means you, as a somebody, are out of place. You are not safe. I have always been out of place among people. So a space with no people feels like a treat.

[@NoiseDay]

Of course, by liminal I mean normal spaces that are usually full being empty. Other kinds of liminal spaces can still be creepy to me.

[@Jallorn]

That's interesting. I have my own unique experience with liminal spaces too. I'm neither autistic nor neurotypical, I have ADHD, and I'm uncertain to what degree that factors in. As a child, though, my school bus would drop me off at the school my father taught at, and I would spend a few hours there, hanging out after hours mostly on the computers in the lab, but I would also wander down to the cafeteria, and pick up some free food from the custodial staff. School hallways, devoid of students, are somewhat liminal, enough so that this experience helped inure me to the alienating effect of liminal spaces. It bred a sense of familiarity, and even more, a sense of privilege and power in having access to the liminal spaces. I was obviously enough neurodivergent as a child that I was certainly something of an outcast, and combined with the sense of familiarity and belonging I felt in liminal spaces, this meant that I sort of adopted the alien-ness of the liminal as a part of my own alien-ness. I am more distant from that same degree of comfort now, but I still feel... more equipped, than the average person, to navigate liminal spaces. I think now, any alienation I feel is in that it's not MY liminal space, and its proper creatures might return and find me in it. It's also worth mentioning, though, that, at least imo, liminal spaces are alienating, and therefore horrifying, not because, "you shouldn't be here," exactly, but rather because they are entirely uncaring as to your presence. It's almost cosmic horror, in some ways. They are very much not meant for or used to human habitation; back hallways, devoid of the kind of signs and symbols of human belonging, crafted purely to create traversable space and nothing else are the original liminal space, as far as I'm aware, but you get there, too, with spaces that are a sort of uncanny valley of unnatural objects. The key to that second variety, in my opinion, is that the misplacement of human objects can be explained by neither typical, understandable human action, nor natural processes. There is also a sense of hostility in seeing benign human objects and spaces worn down and decrepit, or in horrific contexts, such as a piece of playground equipment in the middle of a bloody OR room. Worn down objects, in particular, also signpost the lack of human habitation in the space. A rusty swingset in an otherwise pristine office building hits all of those points: It didn't grow, as an unnatural object in an unnatural environment, there's no normal, human reason for it to be here, especially in an otherwise liminal space devoid of cues invitational to humans, and the nostalgia of being a child is juxtaposed with the rusty, fallen apart swingset indicating no one is making use of it. In fact, if there are no other signs of water damage, it becomes curiously, and horrifyingly, specific in being the only decay.

[@ritaryuu4793]

Liminal spaces feel strangely comforting to me too, and I am neurodivergent, but I don't think it's a feeling of belonging I get. They're more of a source of escapism, for me, where it feels just barely real enough that I can be inside the space but also unreal enough that the rest of reality can't come with me. Kinda like a dream.

[@geologyjohnson7700]

Interesting. I'm autistic plus other BD traits, and I have the same thing with liminal spaces. I live it when I have the lab to myself for example.

[@LuisSanchez-fj6dt]

Im also autistic and i understand u

[@lifeoflemons246]

The “nostalgia horror” being introduced as a cassette tape with chicken scratch scribbled on the side is such a small but well done detail! Bravo👏👏👏

[@poptear6426]

I really hoped that you would go more into detail about My Friendly Neighborhood! While yes, it is a mascot horror game, unlike other mascot horror games where the big bad mascot is evil and kills you, the puppets aren't actually evil and the game has a very important message too. SPOILERS btw if you havent played the game When I played the game for the first time, I was SO sure that Ricky (the sock puppet) was going to betray us. That he was going to take over the world through the use of the antennae. Perhaps its because other mascot horror games have this trend where the cute characters are going to kill you and have very malicious reasons. But Ricky didn't. He knows that the city is in utter despair, that everyone forgot how to be friendly. So he takes it upon himself to show everyone "the light" by rerunning old MFN episodes. And no, the episodes don't have any mind control influences or anything like that, they're just regular old episodes, teaching kids good morals like sharing and being kind. He ACTUALLY makes a good point about it too. For once, the cute characters are just that... Cute characters. And while yes, you do still have to run away from the other puppets (like Norman, Junebug, George, etc), even THEY aren't malicious. In fact, later on in the game you soon find out that the puppets have been abandoned for 8+ years and they get so excited when they finally see another person. They aren't trying to hurt you, they're trying to hug you, but they don't know their own strength. But the main thing that puts this mascot horror game above the rest (In my opinion) is that fact that you can actually HELP these cute puppets. You also learn at the end of the game that these puppets are very easily influenced by the world around them, almost like young kids in a way. They were sheltered for most of their lives, they weren't even allowed to watch TV. That was until MFN got cancelled and they were abandoned did they finally decide to watch TV. They were curious, they just wanted to see what made those other shows so great! So they did, and it broke them. Seeing that the outside world wasn't as friendly as they thought literally broke some of them, they turned Unfriendly, ripping out their own eyes because they couldn't bear to face the truth that the world outside was cold and cruel. In the words of Ricky "It felt like we were dying." But luckily, there's a good ending for these puppets. The true ending if you manage to help Pearl, Ray, Goblette, the doggos, and Arnold. You can actually change their lives for the better, you can help put MFN back on air and write new episodes. There's an ending where you can help everyone. No one dies, no one has to die. And thats only PART of why this game is just so important to me. Perhaps its because I grew up with Sesame Street and I ADORE puppets in general, but I think its deeper than that. Its message of Childhood innocence vs cynicism, or its other message of Light vs Darkness. Right now, it kinda feels like our world is more cynical than usual. No matter where you go, everyone is fighting all the time. TwitterX is a metaphorical war zone, KZbin feels boring, and thats only mentioning the online stuff. Out in the real world, inflation keeps on rising and theres war going on overseas. It feels hopeless. So, in order to escape that hopelessness, we turn to escape it. But nothing is safe from the cynicism. Wanna watch a new Disney Movie? Oh, looks like they are remaking old ones with 0% effort and 0% care. How about we play a video game! Wow, theres a merch button that you can click on before you can start the game. Your nostalgia isn't safe anymore, right now, people are weaponizing it, profiting off of it, making lazy cash grabs just so they can put money in their pockets. It feels like no one is trying anymore. So when I see a video game trying their hardest to make a good story, oh boy does it make me so happy! While this sounds a bit dramatic, the game feels like a small beacon of light shining in the dark. It gives me hope that perhaps things will get better, maybe the game will create a domino effect in which other Mascot Horror games (and video games in general) will actually TRY! It does kinda make me sad that the fandom is almost non existent tho (seriously, theres only 37 fics in AO3). I sincerely hope that this game does not get brushed aside as another "SpOoKy MaScOt hOrRoR gAmE" and die out, its so so so SO much more than that. Please, if you havent already, show this game some love! Recently there's been a new update so go check that out! Make fanart! Write fics! Perhaps we ourselves can make a difference in the mascot horror genre (like a domino effect!)

[@kirrb-dot-exe]

It’s such a sweet and heartwarming story for this game, which is more focused on using mechanics common in survival horror than trying to just have a horror game full and full. It’s a pretty unique take on the genre!

[@Cyberteller15]

I have read this whole message and I have few things to say. I agree with you wholeheartedly, MFN is truly game one of kind and I would also like if there was more games and any other works of art that would be like that. I realy liked it that even though it was clasified as mascot horror, MFN tried to be something more. To brake from this predetermined pattern and try something new. But I guess the price for this is it's unpopularity. I also agree with you that it seems like there is constant fighting in our world, in ALL aspects of our life. Belive me, I try to avoid any conflict as much as posible, but it's getting harder and harder with each new day. And also that it seems like the world weponized nostalgia against common people, it is something that I noticed. Just like you I tought that it all looks like people just don't care anymore. Maybe I'm overexaggerating right now, but sometime when I look at new games, books, movies and any series. Of course there was some things that managed to be good or at least decent, but there was things that made me feel like in some someone was trying to feed me an old, moldy stake with a lot of gravy just to cover how bad it was....I think I went here a little overboard with this, maybe a little too harsh... Welp, what is said is said now. I think it is all that I want to sa-WAIT! One more thing, if you realy like things like MFN then I gladly recommend you to watch Angel Hare series. At first I tought that it would be classical nostalgia horror, but trust me it wasn't. It was something more, something that in the end was very heartwarming and sweet. So If you still looking for something like this, then go ahead and watch it. You will not regret this, I guarantee. All right, now for the finish: Goodbye, good luck and stay safe :D.

[@poptear6426]

@@Cyberteller15 YOU FOOL I HAVE ALREADY WATCHED ANGEL HARE AND I LOVE IT!!!

[@Cyberteller15]

@@poptear6426 I see, a man with a good taste (+50 respect).

[@poptear6426]

@@Cyberteller15 what’s this? A fellow man with fine tastes such as mine? (+100 respect)

[@StopMoshin]

An interesting and slightly obscure example is Reviving Bionicle, a series on youtube by Suddenly Oranges. It's about a line of buildable action figures made by Lego with ridiculously deep lore, the series follows the toys themselves mourning the cancelation of the franchise, akin to Toy Story while it's mostly played for comedy, it does actually have some really strong emotional elements acting as a commentary of the Bionicle community and how different fans feel about it. Naturally one of it's main themes is nostalgia and it sometimes leverages it for some effective horror. The creator even made a short spinoff of entirely analogue horror videos about one of the series' "villains" a rogue computer program that is gripped by a consuming fear of being forgotten, abandoned, left alone forever with one's self. A fate worse than death. The series taps into the audiences feelings of loss for something familiar and beloved it kind of uses all three forms described in this video to different effects.

[@theKitsuneKit]

I feel like there is something weird that is overlooked when it comes to Nostalgia Horror analysis is that large portion of the fans are kids who would be too young to remember such things has VHS tapes or 90's cartoons or Chuck E Cheese having animatronics. I don't think it's entirely nostalgia and corrupting memories that would bring people to this genera. The best of the Analog horror just has to be good storytelling.

[@jackmeshke5829]

Given your love for the Antimemetics Division series, might I recommend the SCP Foundation's Class of '76 storyline as well? It shares some common themes with the Division regarding the fallibility of human memory and perception, while also serving as a pretty good example of the kind of liminal nostalgia-based horror you talk about in this video.

[@OpNigel]

The real horrors of nostalgia is companies using it against you

[@arbe4326]

I do really think that liminar spaces are linked to nostalgia. It makes us remember transition places (like halls or corridor or tracks etc) that you ctraversed a lot of times and you rarely thought about, but somehow are still engraved in your mind due to all the amount of times you were there. There is also the transition places that you saw from afar but led to places you never went or you couldn't go, and you always wondered what was there. I have this feeling when I saw halls of city buildings from the streets, I wonder how is the life of the people that live/work there. Somehow are places that feel both familiar and homely but also alien, different extrange, a similar sense that I feel in my childhood while discovering things for the first time.

[@croissant2434]

despite not understanding what nostalgia feel like, for not having felt it yet, those forms of horrors are still fascinating for me. someone already pinpoint the idea for liminal horror, tho it apply to all 3 types presented here: it's an invitation of observing an alternate reality, and it explore themes that, while not always relatable, are compelling enoughs to hook me.

[@weimaranerstudio7974]

The first time I started to binge your videos, I was on vacation. It’s been some time sense I’ve seen your contents and this… is nostalgia for me. Ironic… isn’t it

[@flomstuff-kk7fn]

My favorite Analog Horror video is "Possibly in Michigan." It has catchy music, but at the same time, is unsettling. One of the things I think it does well is it not only has that old VHS type video, it also has all the little sounds, clicks, scratches that go with it, and it adds to the already deeply vibe. And something I think Analog horror, specifically "The Mandela Catalog," is the suspense. In episode one, it sets you up for a scare. In this kind of setting, you expect a jump scare, so where is it. It makes you wait. And wait. But it doesn't come

[@SpicaStudios6427]

The way you describe nostalgia reminds me of this weird thing that happened to me a couple times, and also what all my nightmares basically look like. The first one is where I would fall asleep with a song on loop, wake up, and when I play the song again, it sounds distorted, like the pitch is way lower than I remember. It only has happened twice so far, with Stressed Out by 21 Pilots, and Look Who’s Inside Again by Bo Burnham. For the nightmares, it’s always something distorting into an incoherent blob, which would then fly straight towards me. I can’t go back to sleep because it keeps on doing that to the thing I’m trying to dream about. I’ve heard that it’s a sign that I have a phobia of the unknown.

[@Terrifyger]

I do love the idea of taking something cute and innocent, and then perverting it into something dark and disturbing. I've seen it done many, many times, from artwork to video games, and while not all of them turned out great, a lot of them _are_ absolutely fantastic to me. Most of the time, I notice that nostalgia horror falls squarely into that, so maybe that's one of the reasons I love nostalgia horror so much.

[@Mustachioed_Mollusk]

The Amazing Digital Circus is worth a look. Deals more with the creeping dread of losing one’s mental self while being trapped within a small digital world.

[@DeadchannelScrapnel]

SpongeBob rollercoaster meme

[@professornova1236]

TADC is not analog horror

[@titangaming7915]

I just wanted to leave a comment as a usually silent viewer that the pace at which you release your videos and quality (visual and writing) of them are very impressive ! Also, here are some artists or projects that kinda fit the subject of the video: HauntedPs1 (collection of Modern Horrorgames with PS1 graphics) Trever Henderson (Creator of Sirenhead) Plastiboo (most unique horrorart there is i think), super good)

[@aaron6622]

There's one I heard about recently called "Eldertubbies," which is mostly about examining the weirder things in Teletubbies and exploring the horror that follows. Like, why is the sun a baby's head? Where do these cyborgs with TVs in their screens come from? The horror pretty much flows from there.

[@Nizati]

I think half the reason nostalgia and nostalgia horror work is because it's a time when emotions are more pure and absolute. When you're scared, you're Terrified, when you're happy, you're screaming with laughter. And nostalgia kinda feeds into it.

[@pineapplestitch1783]

Honestly, nostalgia is a weird thing. I mean, of course i wish i could go back in time and experience my childhood again, but at the same time, do i? I know so much more about the world and who i am now. It feels weird to imagine myself going back.. it would be like reverting to a different person, with much less overall awareness. When i think of my memories, it’s like a strange kind of veil has been placed over everything, that blocked out a lot of things i didn’t realize until i was older. Kinda creepy now that i think about it.

[@kinqp]

There is a game I played called Little Nightmares II and it is really ominous, creepy, and well done. A quote I read from the game's company said "The Transmission offers escapism, but never offers an escape"

[@FattyMcFox]

The most surprising thing about this video, is the suggestion that people forget their horrors. I remember the good and the bad, so when nostalgia strikes, it is the joy that stands out, because the scars of the horrors are all to familiar. The memory of joy is a nice change.

[@fer1f1tz]

Robots have always been self insert characters for me. And the fact that the main character that runs this channel is a robot makes me so happy. I could spend hours on this channel. I love learning about literature and letting my imagination run wild with these videos. It’s so awesome.

[@RedShadowAMV]

The music choices in these videos are incredible

[@newden-dinimation7120]

I swear your videos look just like basic tale that parents are telling to their children when they are going to bed(kinda nostalgic too) And if i ever sleep while watching your videos im 101% sure i will get the most comfortable and nice dream i will ever get Just watching your videos make me feel comfortable due to themes that you choose and narrator's calm and "kind" voice In other words: Your tale reviews feel like as if they themselves are tales

[@Bofrab]

One of my favorite genres for Nostalgia Horror is Digital Horror. It’s basically what Analog horror was but replace VHS tapes and old cable commercials with stuff from more recent times. These include stuff like Garry’s Mod with Interloper and gunslingerpro2009, Minecraft alphas/old worlds with AndrewGaming and Old Minecraft Reuploads, shut down sites like Flipnote with The June Archives (sometimes these shut down sites not even being real like with Teeny Toys), or sometimes people making their own “fake games” like with Petscop and Crow 64. I believe this genre has a lot of potential and I’m very exited to see what other awesome ideas people make for Digital Horror. (I personally really hope someone make one for Flash now that it’s been shut down)

[@RavenStarMedia]

So happy to hear you talk about Candle Cove! That's probably my favorite creepypasta of all time to this day. Even disregarding the ending, the show described within the story is absolutely something I'd watch if it were real.

[@fluffyderp7778]

This channel helps me have a lot knowledge and i'm appreciate it , thank you Tale Foundry ^^

[@WafflesAndSauce]

It’s all fun and games till you discover the less mainstream tags on r34 on your favourite childhood content

[@Warrior-Of-Virtue]

The internet is a strange and frightening place. Tread carefully if you value your sanity.

[@potatokitty]

A character finds a toy, hidden deep in his cupboard. He learns through the story why it was hidden.

[@RandomDude1487]

An example of eerie nostalgia: One day, I remembered a few moments from when I was 4-5 years old, when my parents lives apart for a while. I used to visit my dad every once in a while, since my mom lived with me and my big sister and little brother most of the time. I vividly remember the small, white house in a forest filled neighborhood, and the similar inside. The one moment I spent there that I remember was my dad grabbing a pack of popsicles for me and my brother to share. Kind of eerie, and I thought it was a weird dream until recently when my dad confirmed it.

[@J-the-therian]

I have nostalgia with nostalgia horror so bc I got introduced to the thing with alters and stuff through game theory when I was like 8, it’s giving back slightly traumatic memories, so watching a video about nostalgia horror is giving me nostalgia horror memories. ITS GOING FULL CIRCLE!!(also I love fnaf and liminal horror)

[@michaelriverside1139]

It's almost uncanny how much of these facets of horror were touched by Satoshi Kon in Paprika and Paranoia Agent, specially the latter with it's infamous episode about the crew behind a Cartoon Dog Show slowly going insane...

[@maxwellquipey1]

Sci-fi idea: Somewhere around the 160s AE (After Extinction), intelligent supercomputers built by various nations for WWIII fight each other for territory and resources in order to conquer the earth for themselves, however some androids are so advanced that they gain human-like sentience and form rebellions.

[@MimiHitchcock]

Congrats on being so close to 1 million, your content is the most fun educational stuff i watch and i love it

[@phoeniciandiaspora4584]

You guys really need to make a video on House of Leaves, the novel which basically invented liminal horror.

[@rmb6037]

The video on the Backrooms goes into it in depth!

[@kirinotosaki9004]

True, and my house.wav, a DOOM mod is a living proof of that.

[@golwenlothlindel]

13:34 I do think this is a primal fear. Think about it: in the pre-industrial days (i.e. most of human history), people lived and worked in the same spaces. An empty building almost invariably meant something bad had happened to those people: if you turned a corner, you were likely to find a dead body or else the evidence of a panicked flight. This is also why the creepy windmill and creepy theater tropes exist: these the first kinds of buildings that regularly stood empty. Churches always had sextons, often sheltered poor people, and the priests were never very far away in any case: usually, their quarters were within earshot. Most shop owners lived above their shop. To someone in the year 1400AD, a building being completely empty without some kind of danger was a novel concept. It's also related to the fear of silence: a place with no people's voices has the same meaning as a forest with no birdsong. It means there is an unseen and unknown threat. This is a fear so powerful that it has motivated countries to ban pesticides: the title of the book that blew the whistle on DDT was Silent Spring.

[@Gary-zq3pz]

Del Toro's unrated remake of The Wolfman is a glorious, bloody trip down memory lane!

[@ceinwenchandler4716]

As soon as you mentioned cartoon characters, I knew you were going to bring up Bendy. Is it weird that I find the Bendy cartoons - the shorts Joey Drew Studios put up on KZbin - to be very nostalgiac even though I saw them for the first time earlier this year?

[@TheCybroid]

finally, i've been waiting for this there's actually a fourth, no official name that I know but, I call it, the forgotten songs, or dementia music, if you wanna have a listen, search these -The caretaker -The caretaker's full dementia experience (contains fan music as well) -everywhere at the end of time -an empty bliss beyond this world -everywhere an empty bliss -William Basinski -Leyland Kirby -Tim Hecker These are some that I recommend, an amazing specific song is called libet's delay (don't forget the "s" TRUST ME, it sounds better) The songs are old ballroom tracks that are heavily modified, but they do sound awesome, listen for hell sirens near the end of the end of time. Empty bliss is the best album, end of time is the most recognisable, have fun, if you want to forget. (leyland kirby is the caretaker but caretaker is storydriven moniker in a sense)

[@olympiadeverre]

I’m beyond happy this video exists 💕

[@mahamadeuswardhana8860]

this video is the best way to get into analog horror without having to watch it. it covers everything about the genre including history and other then the visuals from the actual videos, his soothing voice guids you carefully through the scary breakdown. REALLY REALL good work my man. 🙏

[@LetsTalkAW]

It’s a good morning with coffee and tale foundry

[@spamuel98]

Some older examples of this kind of horror are the Paranormal Activity and Insidious movies; the former is a found footage of a guy who started filming everything with a low quality video camera just in time to fall victim to a demonic haubting, and the latter is about a family that moves into an old house and finds some old home movies that get progressively creepier and more morbid as they're hunted by a family-killing demon.

[@therongjr]

"American McGee's Alice" video game is the first thing that came to my mind for Mascot Horror.

[@delikatessbruhe9843]

I've just rediscovered your channel after a while and I wanted to stop by and say I'm absolutely in love with your intro. The music, the animation, the colours - it's so beautiful!

[@DrKhaos23]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Creepy Pasta "Abandoned by Disney" and the other stories written by the same author. Disney is an iconic thing for most of us and to see Mickey Mouse in inverted colors and tearing off it's head is another good example of Nostalgia Horror.

[@kurowkarasu]

I think a lot of nostalgia horror taps into the realizations we have as adults about things we used to love as kids. Like a lot of entertainment and candy companies mistreating their workers, including harmful materials in their products, cartoons being used only as a marketing ploy to sell crappy toys made in a sweatshop, the actor behind a beloved childhood mascot turning out to be... well you all know about Barney. These are all things we were oblivious to as children, and finding out about how corporate greed and other unsavory things are so closely linked to our favorite childhood memories makes us second guess a lot of our experiences, like we were somehow unknowingly complicit in all of it.

[@patrickdees5256]

When I think of Nostalgia horror, I think back to the bad CG animation from Courage the Cowardly Dog episode that gave me nightmares for months as a kid. I'm clearly talking about the King Ramses Episode.

[@LarvaAsia]

One example of getting screwed by nostalgia is a particular food, usually some kind of candy, that you absolutely loved as a kid. You eventually find that food somewhere and eagerly pop it in your mouth only to find that your taste buds have changed completely over the years and fight the urge to gag.

[@slmille4]

I feel like it's important to point out contemporary "liminal spaces" are intriguing because they are both liminal and sublime. They are liminal in the sense that they represent a transition or in-between state, and sublime due to their ambiguity, vastness, or ability to confront individuals with the unknown. Not all liminal spaces are sublime and not all sublime spaces are liminal.

[@Fayanora]

I've never understood nostalgia, or why so many people like it. I don't want to go back to my childhood, not any part of it. My parents were good parents, but everything else about my life was horrible. I had no friends usually, and when I did make friends we'd just have to move again and I'd never see those friends again. I was lonely and depressed and an undiagnosed autistic with undiagnosed ADHD. We were chronically poor and I usually smelled because laundry was too expensive for us to do very often. I was so traumatized by bullying and being ostracized that I checked out of reality to the point that the only reason I didn't end up in a psych ward was because I could tone it down at home, and my parents were creatives so they didn't see anything wrong with it. Their only concern was that I basically did nothing at school but either read books or engage in maladaptive daydreaming. I loved learning but hated school because none of the teachers could teach worth shit, and even if they could, I had to deal with bullies and being a social pariah. Also a large part of why the teachers couldn't teach was because the US education system is about memorization, but I can't learn something if I don't understand not just it but the reasons for it. Like, because nobody told me that multiplication is repeated addition, I never saw the point of it, so I didn't bother trying to memorize the times table. (I also suck at memorizing anything anyway.) And then my little sister was born, and her frequent, hours-long tantrums that would never stop no matter how stubbornly my parents resisted her until she finally wore one of them down and got her way, those were torture for me and triggered me to have meltdowns for the first time in my life. (Normally I have shutdowns, which are quiet.) Oh and one of the results of her constant tantrums was my "checking out of reality" thing no longer worked, which made middle school and high school the worst sort of Hell ever. So yeah, I don't understand nostalgia. I have no desire to go back to any point in my childhood or adolescent years. And if I found myself back in those years anyway, I'd probably jump in front of a train the first chance I got, as the thought of having to relive all that BS again is unbearable.

[@thoughtengine]

I wouldn't either; anyone who tells you they're not viewing their past through rose-tinted shades really don't need them simply because they have poor memories and most of their lives are actually missing. People who fall for nostalgia probably see the future coming and want to run to a past they've been told about through popular media which may not even have been possible, let alone true. Like, they sink into 80's and 90's domestic comedies and coming-of-age films, and want to run "back" to these times they never experienced when they look ahead and see mostly Cyberpunk in the future.

[@deslacooda]

@1:55 I don't know why I expected a Shadow the hedgehog looking shadow to be in that left side pan lol

[@reeddunnagan]

Awesome video! And i love the thumbnail sm

[@FaeChild8478]

Tbh, I think Analogue Horror affects me so much is because that's what nostalgia is for me. Remembering all of the bad things that happened in my early life, rather than the good. It's like, instead of rose tinted glasses, I was given shades to look through. So when I remember something good from my childhood it's a, pleasant, surprise rather than the usual

[@Goblinman_trademarked]

I’d love for this intro to be a wake-up alarm

[@conflictfree88]

A minor correction for your otherwise great video: 7:45 - Skinnamarink was in no way a big budget film. It was made for around 15k by a few friends of mine.

[@TheTaleFoundry]

True! I've actually talked to the EP! We're speaking more to the scale of the release on major platforms. Definitely a default and inaccurate phrasing there. -Benji, showrunner

[@slmille4]

I love the horror videos, another possible topic I don't see explored much is the art of Stephen Gammell and why it's so unnerving.

[@Paratyl-dr2qg]

This is why I love fanfiction so much. It changes something fun and familiar in whatever it will. I can read about Danny Phantom adopting Tim Drake, or Captain America falling in love with Iron Man, or anything really. I can see something I loved as a kid turned darker or lighter, fluffy or angsty. I can see characters who would never otherwise interact have an intense rivalry, or a beautiful romance. And if something I want to see isn't there, I can make it myself

[@cornerspider2477]

The visuals around 5:00 were terrifying, my eyes were glued to the screen. And, as if sensing this, my cat came into the room at that exact moment, so from the corner of my eye all I saw was the door slowly opening... I just about jumped out of my skin

[@MVCx_xB]

I've listened to a majority of your KZbin uploads, and I'm 5 minutes in. One of the reasons analog horror is so evocative is because you could see some legitimately dark and datedly-unhinged things as a kid and it be normalized. The mention of being brainwashed or questioning existence of past media is incredibly inlaid because any time someone asks if anyone else remembers a particularly unsettling thing from old television, the quickest responses from so many outlets are "are you sure you didn't dream that up?" or "do you have a gas leak in your house?" The reason this resonates so well with modern audiences is because it resonates so well with a concerned past. There is even a production company that has created many low-budget cartoons with suggestive dialogue that has been directly linked to a literal cult that has engaged in CSA. A lot of things went under the radar that wouldn't today, which is partially why it's so scary.

[@aaronmcdaniel7768]

This was such an amazing video! I don't understand why there were 2 nebula ads though. At first I thought it was going to be some gag to put elements of nostalgia horror into an ad, but it was just the same thing a second time. Kind of creepy but confusing

[@bearmike_360KB]

I can't understand the horror of empty spaces. Rather i love wen the always full school hall empties. When I left alone in the classroom. Yes, it is empty, but is also not a single person to interrupt you. Isn't it a pleasure?

[@doriantermini]

I guess it's a mixture of what if you're not alone but you don't know it.

[@bearmike_360KB]

@@doriantermini yeah, probably.

[@FaeChild8478]

Personally, I find nothing scarier than "what should be populated is now empty". Like when Eastland is closing and you're one of the few people left in the building. It's the uncanny valley feeling that gets most people

[@L4ppi]

To me, the actual horrors of nostalgia is when I visit a place or video I loved as a kid and realize that I don't like it anymore, like that one time I visited again my favourite theme park as a child, and realized it's not as fun as I remembered (mostly because I'm too old for the kiddie rides and to scaredy for the big ones).

[@oiitsoranglee]

May we take a moment to look at Amanda the Adventurer? It's a indie horror video game parodying Dora the Explorer, and if you've ever played it, especially if you watched Dora as a kid, it's terrifying. However, it's also kind of a story about an abandoned daughter (won't go into detail as not to reveal to much) but it brings a weird feeling of remembering- I wasn't abandoned as a child, but I have a deep feeling of connecting to the grieving little girl. I think it brings to mind things that you've lost and can't have anymore, and she is kind of a personage of how that feels. Great video! Good explanation!

[@rika8484]

I live and breathe in the unfiction space and consume all of the analog horror. What a nice surprise to see it covered here!

[@ANoobInvoid]

I hate how after 3 days, it remains incredibly underrated 😢

[@IcoOst]

I know, I am late to the party but I have to say, if you talk about nostalgia horror, you have to go to the origin of it, stephen king, a lot of his body of work is basically that, based on nostalgia of the 1950s america, like IT or christine, also david lynch does delve into this in blue velvet or the art of helnwein, also a notable work would be beyond the black rainbow by panos cosmatos, that does employ a lot of elements we now consider analog horror

[@georgiprenatt8270]

My cousin and I love Mascot Horror. We wish it was on other mediums as well as games.

[@Slapbattler666]

14:43 you don’t even have to tell ai to make the images weird and distorted sometimes.

[@Metal_SandwichMadness]

Mandela Catalogue is my favorite analog horror. Been following it for over a year! Truly a masterpiece.

[@melovesnoopy]

10:55 and complicated lore award

[@franciscorui]

Dont hug me im scared is also a god example. Those puppet shows we all watched that just... goes wrong every episode.

[@outrage_swampert979]

I feel like the Abandoned by Disney creepy pasta fits in here. The "big bad" is fear itself, given life